O n f e r e n c e

Denis Liakin*, Walcir Cardoso*, Natallia Liakina** 
*Concordia University, Montreal, Canada 
**McGill University, Montreal, Canada 
[e-mail], [e-mail], [e-mail] 
Learning L2 Pronunciation with a Mobile Speech Synthesizer 
Bio data 
Denis Liakin
is an Associate Professor of French Linguistics at Concordia University. His 
main research interests are CALL, language acquisition and syntax. 
 
Walcir Cardoso
is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Concordia University. 
His main research interest is to explore how insights from phonology can be applied to 
the teaching of second language pronunciation in traditional and computer-assisted 
environments. 
Natallia Liakina
is a Faculty Lecturer in the McGill’s French Language Centre. Her 
research interests include teaching second language pronunciation and CALL. 
Abstract 
The literature on the pedagogical applications of text-to-speech synthesizers (TTS) is 
scarce and, to our knowledge, non-existent in the context of mobile devices such as 
smartphones and smart media players (mobile TTS henceforth). However, the handful of 
studies available indicates that TTS has potential for the teaching of L2 pronunciation 
(Cardoso et al., 2012; Soler-
Urzúa, 2011), particularly to raise learners’ awareness about 
certain language features in a personalized way. In this study, we examine the impact of 
the pedagogical use of mobile TTS on the L2 acquisition of French liaison, a process that 
resyllabifies a word-final consonant across two words (e.g., peti/t.a/mi => peti[ta]mi 
‘boyfriend’).
The study compared three groups of intermediate L2 learners of French acquiring liaison 
via 20-minute weekly activities over two months, following a pretest/post-test/delayed 
post-test design within a mixed method approach to data collection. The participants 
were divided into three experimental groups: (1) the TTS Group used a commercial (but 
free) TTS application on their mobile devices to complete weekly pronunciation tasks 
consisting of noticing, listen-and-categorize, and listen-and-repeat activities; (2) the 
Non-TTS Group completed the same weekly pronunciation tasks in individual weekly 
sessions with a teacher; finally, (3) the Control Group participated in weekly individual 
meetings “to practice their conversation skills” with a teacher, who provided no 
pronunciation feedback. The analysis of the results indicates that the group that was 
treated with mobile TTS outperformed both the Non-TTS and the Control groups in liaison 
production. The discussion of our findings highlights how mobile TTS technology can be 
used to complement and enhance the teaching of L2 pronunciation. In addition, we 
discuss some of the methodological challenges we encountered (e.g., lack of control over 
learners’ time
-on-task, reliability of connection, small size of the hardware) and how they 
can be minimized in future research.

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-234- 
2014 CALL Conference 
LINGUAPOLIS
www.antwerpcall.be